And now for something completely different ...

(not so much, but I always wanted to say that.)

More often than not, the Cities which host conferences with international scope are on the same short list. Getting on the "short list" for the Olympics, The World Cup, The Super Bowl, etc. is High Art for Municipal Governments because success in staging a major event can be very kind indeed to the Local Economy.

Where the topic of a conference is Government or Governance, a certain amount of empirical information about the higher levels of government present is useful to understand statistical reports put forth at a national level.